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In 2020, the lab leak theory was dangerous and unhelpful. The incumbent at the White House was easily swayed into acting rashly without thinking too hard, and t

In 2020, the lab leak theory was dangerous and unhelpful. The incumbent at the White House was easily swayed into acting rashly without thinking too hard, and the whole world was dependent on very limited supplies of PPE and biotech equipment that mostly came from China. In 2022, the lab leak theory isn't so dangerous to talk about, and China is making waves about Taiwan. It's all about the time and the place. Sometimes it's better to keep quiet for now. That's not a conspiracy, it's strategy.

tomschlick 5y ago
Ah so lets suppress the truth when it's convenient and bring it back out when it's politically advantageous for your party. That doesn't seem dangerous to you? It's quite literally propaganda and the stuff that tin foil hat loonies have been warning about for years... If that's where we are at politically I guess they weren't so crazy after all.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  Lab leak theory is not "the truth". It's still very much a minority POV. And either way, it seems clear by now that the virus has originated in an animal reservoir and that similar things happen all the time.
  - tomschlick 5y ago
    In my experience, its very much not a minority POV. Almost no one I talk to thinks its a coincidence that a novel coronavirus with unique characteristics just so happened to pop up in a city with the only BSL-4 laboratory in hundreds of miles which works specifically with bat coronaviruses. I don't think anyone reputable is saying that anything was intentionally released, but I think its quite obvious at this point that something was accidentally released and the CCP is very focused on covering it up to save face.
SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
What does "conspiracy" mean to you, exactly? If the biomedical research community covered up an idea they thought might be true in order to support a political strategy, I'd consider that almost the canonical example of a conspiracy. Maybe it was a good political strategy, maybe it was serving an important goal - the bottom line would still be that you can't trust what they say because they might have secretly decided that it's best to deceive you.

tomschlick 5y ago

Ah so lets suppress the truth when it's convenient and bring it back out when it's politically advantageous for your party. That doesn't seem dangerous to you? It's quite literally propaganda and the stuff that tin foil hat loonies have been warning about for years... If that's where we are at politically I guess they weren't so crazy after all.

zozbot234 5y ago
Lab leak theory is not "the truth". It's still very much a minority POV. And either way, it seems clear by now that the virus has originated in an animal reservoir and that similar things happen all the time.
- tomschlick 5y ago
  In my experience, its very much not a minority POV. Almost no one I talk to thinks its a coincidence that a novel coronavirus with unique characteristics just so happened to pop up in a city with the only BSL-4 laboratory in hundreds of miles which works specifically with bat coronaviruses. I don't think anyone reputable is saying that anything was intentionally released, but I think its quite obvious at this point that something was accidentally released and the CCP is very focused on covering it up to save face.

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago

What does "conspiracy" mean to you, exactly? If the biomedical research community covered up an idea they thought might be true in order to support a political strategy, I'd consider that almost the canonical example of a conspiracy. Maybe it was a good political strategy, maybe it was serving an important goal - the bottom line would still be that you can't trust what they say because they might have secretly decided that it's best to deceive you.